


An Equal and Enticing Price

by twoseas



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Content, M/M, Mind Palace, Mind Palace Will Graham, Murder Husbands, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Fall (Hannibal), Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, Will is both soft and savage and Hannibal is into it, and calling Hannibal out, being tipped off a cliff makes Hannibal re-evaluate his behavior, he also loves a good memory montage, like all Wills mind palace Will is a sassy bitch, the advent of Soft murder husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-14 22:18:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18061208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twoseas/pseuds/twoseas
Summary: While Will is on the brink of consciousness, Hannibal slips into his mind palace for some much needed introspection. There is much to do and, not for the first time, Hannibal is uncertain about how to handle Will and his own dangerous need for the other man. Who better to consult than Will?Featuring a Hannibal who loves Will but also doesn't want to be pushed over any more cliffs, Mind Palace Will not pulling any punches, and a beaten and battered serial-killer-in-the-making who just wants to hold hands.





	An Equal and Enticing Price

**Author's Note:**

> It's no secret that I love me some Murder Husbands and writing a conversation between Hannibal and Mind Palace Will seemed like a fun way to explore some of their issues. I think those scenes in the show are so interesting and cool and I've always loved it when fics featured the mind palace in different ways so I wanted to try my hand at it. 
> 
> Please, enjoy!

Hannibal looked down upon Will’s still form. He was pale, sickly against the white sheets. Bandages covered the worst of his wounds, including nearly a quarter of his face. The places left uncovered were not unharmed, bruises and abrasions marring much of the exposed skin. Hannibal had kept Will sedated long enough now that some of the bruises were already healing, a mottled yellow around fading purple. Will was stable, his wounds clear of infection, his body well on the way to a miraculous recovery considering the extensive injuries done unto him by not just the Dragon, but the fall. 

It was time to wake up. 

Hannibal considered the man in the bed and closed his eyes. 

When he opened them, he was sat in front of Botticelli’s  _ Primavera _ , Will beside him. 

Hannibal admired the painting for the briefest of moments before he turned his head and instead admired Will’s striking profile. 

“Saying goodbye to this pretty face?” Will asked, voice as dry as dust. 

“Even scarred, you’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever beheld,” Hannibal admitted fondly. “Perhaps moreso.”

Will huffed a laugh. “Really now?”

He shifted on their shared bench, facing Hannibal with a crooked smile. Hannibal could now see the thin scar on his forehead in addition to the thicker, fresher scar-to-be on his cheek. 

Hannibal hummed. “All your scars have suited you. This one won’t be any different.”

Will laughed again, a nearly silent exhalation paired with a disbelieving upturn of his lips. “If you didn’t come here to admire my former visage after staring at my bloodied bandages and bruises for days on end, then maybe you should move onto the purpose of your visit.”

Hannibal took in a deep breath, mouth pursed in thought. “I’m debating my next course of action.”

“In regards to me?” A sarcastic brow quirked upwards.

“Naturally.” Hannibal could still smell the salt tang of the ocean mixed with his blood and Will’s. “You threw us off a cliff.”

Entirely unconcerned with the accusation, Will shrugged and went back to looking at the painting. “You know why.” 

“Of course.”

Will’s next smile was a sheepish thing. “Then you should have a pretty good guess as to how things are going to play out from here.”

Hannibal sighed, turning a morose and exhausted gaze onto his mind’s representation of Will. Here, in the safety of his mind palace, he could let the full weight of the situation show. “You tried to destroy me, and yourself in the process, but you didn’t succeed.”

“Time to try and try again?” Will suggested, voice lowered like he was sharing an inside joke. 

“That isn’t what I want,” Hannibal admitted with the kind of upfront honesty he so often lacked when dealing with the real Will. 

“I think this conversation needs a change of scenery,” Will told him. 

Hannibal nodded and in that moment they stood in Will’s house in Wolf Trap. The home was cozy, messy, lived in, and covered in dog hair. Every inch of it sang out with Will’s presence.

“This isn’t quite right.” Will shook his head in disapproval. “We’re missing the most important part.”

Between one beat and the next, two figures from the past appeared as if they had always been there.

Hannibal watched the memory like an outsider, eyes fixed on his past self as he shoved a tube down Will’s throat. The memory was vibrant, every detail as vivid as the day it happened. 

“It wasn’t the first time,” Will noted passively, hands shoved into his pockets. This version of Will stood in stark contrast to the Will that was gagging, choking on the tube. “But I think it makes my point the best.”

The Hannibal of the past was now inserting Abigail’s ear, methodical and precise in his movements. Will circled the ongoing memory, those piercing eyes taking in Hannibal’s ministrations the same way they took in Botticelli’s brush strokes. “I let you in, Hannibal. I let you into my home and my life. And this is how you reciprocated.”

The setting changed and more memories flashed before the two of them. Will begging not to be lied to. Will seizing. Will pulling a gun on him. Will behind bars. Will caged. Will’s expressions - flat, disdainful, savage but restrained, heartbroken. Will bleeding on the floor. Will shot through the shoulder. Will with his blood covered mouth. Will with his hand pressed to the glass.  _ WillWillWillWillWill _ ... 

The surge of memories came to an abrupt halt at the cliff’s edge. Hannibal watched the moment Will embraced him, the two of them victorious over the Dragon. His chest hitched, the breath caught in his lungs. 

The other Will, the one that had been with Hannibal since he entered his mind palace, ignored the bloodsoaked victors. Instead he glanced over the edge and gave the steep cliffside an approving nod before returning to Hannibal’s side.

“You set the terms, Hannibal,” he said. He sounded nearly apologetic. “You chose the rules. A hit for a hit. A betrayal for a betrayal. Hide behind your excuses about cocoons and true natures all you want, but at the end of the day you have no one to blame but yourself. I’ve merely been playing the game you created.”

Hannibal watched as he and Will tipped over the edge and towards the Atlantic’s frigid grasp. 

“I’m not as good at playing as you,” Will shrugged nonchalantly. “Hard to win a game you didn’t realize you were playing until it was already in full swing. Though I certainly tried. Might be a matter of experience.”

“Try and try again?” Hannibal reiterated. 

Will smirked at him. “Why not?”

“Perhaps I wish for a different game,” Hannibal confessed. “One with different rules. A new set of terms between us.”

“You’re going to have a hell of a time convincing me,” Will answered in his self-deprecating laugh. It was the one that became familiar to Hannibal with startling immediacy, so common from Will in the early days of their relationship. 

“Have you any advice for me?” Hannibal inquired. His mind’s amalgamation of Will was proving to be the much needed insight he desired. With so many decisions to make and so much hanging in the balance, every tool at Hannibal’s disposal would be needed - for this more than anything. Hannibal’s knowledge of Will, given form and voice, was a valuable tool indeed. 

Will thought on the question, features shifting with countless micro expressions as he considered Hannibal’s request. 

“I’m tired of hurting, Hannibal,” he said at last. “For all that pain reminds us of being alive, I don’t want it. It’s my near constant companion and I’ve tried so hard to get away from it. Alcohol. A family. Fishing. My dogs. All of those were used to alleviate the agony of existence - an agony you have personally augmented. I know pain. I can handle pain. But I don’t crave it, not for myself at least.”

“I want soft things,” Will admitted shyly, like it was an abashing secret. “I want tenderness and affection. I want promises to be kept and acceptance without steep costs. I want sweetness and love.”

“Are you asking me to be sweet, Will?” Hannibal sneered, a sudden and sharp reaction to the whispered confession of his mind’s Will. 

“I’m not that stupid,” Will scoffed, sentimental gentleness replaced by derision. “All your softness has come with the price of pain, Doctor Lecter. That’s your game. Or haven’t you been paying attention?”

He stepped closer to Hannibal, a challenging predator who knew no fear, who had been torn apart so many times in so many ways that he knew exactly how far he could push, how much he could survive. “You came to  _ me  _ for advice. You don’t get to mock me for speaking the truth. You’re as tired of the game as I am, Doctor Lecter, or you wouldn’t be here. You would be out there killing me, imprisoning me, keeping me the way you kept Miriam Lass and Abigail. Or you’d throw me away, leave me to my fate. But you can’t.”

Will moved away with a snarling scowl. “You’re as deep in this as I am and you know it. You’ve known it longer than I have, sitting alone in your plush chair while I rotted away for the crimes you committed. You want us to be together so badly it hurts like a physical pain, a scalpel between the ribs given a firm twist. For all of that raw, unrelenting, soul deep need, you know what us being together means. It means more spilled blood, more cliffs, more betrayal. We will eat each other alive. You’ll gut me and I’ll rip the heart out of you. We’re a plague, a pox on those who dare to get close or come between us. But we’re also our own worst enemies and you know how we’ll end. You kill me or I kill you or I kill me.”

A cruel, sharp smile allowed Hannibal a glimpse of Will’s glinting teeth. “That’s the price of togetherness.”

And it was, Hannibal realized. He himself had made it so. But he could also alter it, end the game and ask for something different.

“If I choose to change the price?” 

Will’s cruelty was washed away by a wary hope. “You might be pleasantly surprised at the results you get. But it might take time.” In another sudden shift, Will’s expression turned impish, his next words amused and snarky. “Rome wasn’t sacked in a day, Hannibal.”

“I can be patient,” Hannibal told him easily. “And tenacious.”

“Now  _ that  _ is a fact I’m intimately acquainted with,” Will chuckled. 

Hannibal nodded, his mood lifting and his decision made. “You’re a font of wisdom, dearest Will.”

Will laughed, truly and genuinely. “You would compliment your own memories and imaginings. Chilton and the rest of the vultures would have a field day.”

Hannibal’s lips ticked upwards. 

 

Taking a seat by Will, Hannibal eased onto the bed gingerly, doing his utmost not to disturb Will’s position. He reached out and ran a careful hand through the unruly curls that spilled over the pillow. Gently as he could, Hannibal combed through with his fingers, removing the tangles and knots that had formed. 

Dark shadowed lids flickered over restless eyes. 

Will’s eyes opened slowly and unevenly, gaze bleary from sedation, pain, or a combination thereof. 

“Hello, Will,” Hannibal whispered, meeting his eyes. His meticulously cultivated forts did not fall. Instead they were lowered, letting Will in past the last of his defenses. 

Will tried to talk, but the injuries to his face made him pause with a wince. Even so, he seemed to be preparing another attempt at speech if the pained grimace was any sort of indication. 

“None of that,” Hannibal cautioned. “You must be very careful or you’ll tear the stitches.”

Will regarded him with a confused frown even as his lids lowered, exhaustion still etched across his newly awakened face. 

“Don’t worry.” Hannibal brushed a stray curl behind Will’s ear. “I’m here.”

Will cocked his eyebrow and Hannibal was sure he would say something equally biting and sarcastic if he had the energy to push past the pain and speak. 

“You’ll see that I mean it,” Hannibal assured him. “I’m afraid it won’t be without a cost to you, dearest Will. Except this time I intend to exact a far more equal and enticing price.”

Hannibal grinned at Will, a true expression that bared his teeth and creased the corners of his eyes.

Will reached out clumsily, his uncoordinated hand landing just above Hannibal’s bent knee and squeezing. The gesture set loose a radiant pressure in Hannibal’s chest. The weight of Will’s hand, affectionate and questioning all at once, settled Hannibal’s concerns and served as proof enough that he made the right choice. He also entertained the hope that the open and artless display of attachment proved that he did not have as far to go with Will as he first feared. 

“A welcome and much appreciated down payment,” Hannibal noted happily, indicating to Will’s hand with a tilt of his head. 

Will’s body shook with faint laughter, muzzy gaze enlivened with humor and a wary sort of hope even as he rolled his eyes.

Hannibal covered Will’s hand with his own, reverently sliding his palm along Will’s scraped knuckles. Barely hesitating at all, Will turned his hand beneath Hannibal’s. They fit together in a way that Hannibal relished. It was indulgent, this simple touch. Intimate.

A most enticing price indeed. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hannibal: I can touch you gently...and then not hurt you? And you will respond positively to this?  
> Will: Yes. Obviously.  
> Hannibal: I'm skeptical, but willing to try anything that involves touching you.


End file.
